Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 746
LINDLEY M. EVANS

Lindley M. EVANS, a pioneer of 1854, whose present home is on the banks of Pigeon Creek, on section 33, of Cass Township, will form the subject for this sketch. His one of the many sons which the old Buckeye State has sent forth. He was born April 9, 1828, in Belmont County, Ohio, and is the son of Israel and Evalina W. (SMITH) EVANS. The father was a farmer, and emigrated to Harrison County, Iowa, in 1853, settling in Jefferson Township, where he died March 15, 1883.

Our subject attended school in Henry County, Ind., and completed his education in Pittsfield Seminary, Pike County, Ill. When about twenty-one years of age he started for himself, working on a farm in Pike County, Ill., receiving $12.00 per month in the last named county. He followed this for three years, and then attended school at Pittsfield, as above related. After he had finished his course he taught school in Pittsfield until he came to Iowa in 1854.

September 10, 1852, he was united in marriage to Miss Caroline GIBBS, daughter of Elias and Deborah (HAWKINS) GIBBS, who was the fourth child of a family of six children, born January 23, 1827. Mr. and Mrs. EVANS are the parents of ten children---Evaline W., Adaline M., Clementine M., who died when five months old, Frederick E., Israel W., Charles H., Carrie D., Lindley M., Walter S. and Theodore.

When our subject came to this county he was accompanied by his wife, one child and his sister Sarah; they made the journey overland, crossing the vast number of streams enroute, none of which had been bridged at that time. It will be remembered this was two years prior to the construction of any railroad west of the Mississippi River. They started with horse teams, but before they had gone far traded for two yoke of oxen, with which they made the journey in four weeks.

Mr. EVANS is a member of the Christian Church, to which he has belonged for forty years, and was ordained as one of its ministers in the summer of 1862, and it has been his sad duty to preach over seventy funeral sermons in Harrison County; he also officiated at and solemnized some forty marriages. He has been a Justice of the Peace twelve years. Politically, he is identified with the Republican party.

In 1888-89 he spent sixteen months in Dundy County, Neb., where he proved up a homestead in November, 1889; also has a tree claim in that county.

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